If batsmen are cricket's labour aristocracy, fast bowlers are its volatile serfs. Shouldering a team's fast-bowling load means they're often indulged, their cranks and oddities warmly forgiven. The same behaviour is less tolerated in others. Fred Trueman, the first England fast bowler to 300 test wickets, was an after-dinner speaker's dream of blarney, lovable non-sequiturs and general verbal outrage.No cricket speech, anywhere, is complete without its mandatory Trueman quote. "We didn't have metaphors in our day," said Trueman once, surveying his halcyon Yorkshire and England past. "We didn't beat around the bush."mini_story_image_vleft1South Africa has certainly had its fair share of nutters. Who can forget Allan Donald and his blowtorch eyes trying to fry Mike Atherton alive, with one passage of play at Lord's prompting commentator David Gower to quip: "Between them they could write a book - although the transcripts might not be particularly publishable."Then there was Dale Steyn, the scruffy kid who grew up lugging his skateboard round the streets of Phalaborwa. Steyn dreamt of becoming a pro surfer, or trying his skating luck in LA. Little did he imagine that he'd become one of the greatest fast bowlers the world has ever seen - a road helped, in part, by his tendency to go bossies, celebrating a wicket by pumping the air with a clenched fist."The red mist can come down," said his coach, Mickey Arthur, tolerantly, giving the Phalaborwa Express all the space he needed.While the excessive celebrations have softened, the wild eyes remain. Two seasons ago in the Indian Premier League, Steyn was bowling to Chris Gayle. Gayle is nonchalantly dismissive at the best of times, liable to heave good deliveries over the boundary with a casual swat. Steyn was having none of it, the ball fizzing past Gayle's eyes in a fine example of what the former England captain and current Sky commentator, Nasser Hussain, once called "chin music". Steyn went on to bowl a maiden - almost as precious a jewel in the fast bowler's crown as taking a wicket.Perhaps the most fearsomely off-the-wall nut job of all was André Nel. About halfway through his career, Nel discovered Gunther, part alter ego, part muse. The imaginary Gunther arose from a casual quip the Proteas' video analyst, Gustav Obermeyer, made in the dressing room about Nel's temper. Shaun Pollock then stencilled "Gunther" at the start of Nel's run-up as the bowlers' were measuring out their marks. Nel went on to take six for 43 against Bangladesh and the nickname stuck. Suddenly 12 were playing 11, a masterstroke.Discovering Gunther was a liberation for Nel. "Gunther is a guy who lives in the mountains and doesn't get enough oxygen to the brain and that makes him crazy."Problems arose, however, when Gunther followed Nel home. The latter stage of his career saw Nel generally misbehave with members of the opposite sex. He drove cars fast while drunk, and attempted suicide. Nel's long-suffering wife stood by, hoping that Gunther would return to the peaks. This he eventually did.mini_story_image_vright2Nel now walks the straight and narrow. He coaches Easterns and counsels calm, proportion. He collects his daughter Sienna from nursery school most afternoons. "She's my kryptonite," the former fast bowler says.Nel stumbled upon the problem which bedevils all the quick men: what to do with their menace?Some cope by cultivating a breezy affability. "Aw mate, I just shuffle up and go wang," said the Aussie fast bowler, Jeff Thomson, half of a great fast-bowling duo with Dennis Lillee. Some feign Olympian detachment. Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, the two beanpole West Indians, didn't say a word to the batsmen. Occasionally you might get a glare. The technique unsettled many. Peter Pollock, the great South African fast bowler of the 1960s, had a very nasty streak. In later life he became a lay preacher. The two inclinations are possibly related.Every so often the game spills over into something naked and raw, uncontrolled by the laws, the umpires and administrators. Ramnaresh Sarwan and Glenn McGrath had a series of very nasty altercations in the Caribbean in 2003, dubbed "the ugliest spat in cricket history". Further back, there were a series of skirmishes between England fast bowler John Snow and several Australian players.Home umpire Lou Rowan stepped in during the Perth test of the 1970-1 series, calling Snow's bowling "intimidating". But Snow argued that there was nothing short-pitched about it. The two growled at each other, and Snow later bowled a delivery which bolted clean over Doug Walter's head. "Now, that's a fucking bouncer," said Snow.Let the last word be Trueman's, who has a unique take - as ever. Asked to define the game, he once said: "That's what cricket's all about: two batsmen pitting their wits against one another."Don't call us, Fred, we'll call you...